


Episode 2 : "3D"

by homoeroticsubtextinspace



Series: Karnaca [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Gay, IN SPACE!, Multi, Science, Science Fiction, Space Exploration, Space Opera, Spaceships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:28:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26569576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homoeroticsubtextinspace/pseuds/homoeroticsubtextinspace
Summary: Second episode! things are getting real, they are finally embarking on their journey!they worry about the safety of their friends and that's soft, I'm soft for that!there will be fluff (not in this episode though, this is not the ambiance of this one) but probably no depiction of sex because i can't write that without going like "annd then... tey KIss n hold... hands"there will be drama, but not too muchthere will be Friendships, because we are not made to go alone.there will be some heavy stuff toothere will be space exploration because i dig that shit like you wouldn't believethere will be overly specific explanations of some of the stuff they encounter because I'm always frustrated about not having enough.notes are at the end , every words marked by a "*" are explained in the notes.Dialogues are encompassed in - words words -Telepathic dialogues (yes, it happens) is encompassed in -"" word word""Dialogues spoken over the ship's communication system (for everyone to hear) are marked this way "word word word"I am very open (not to say starving) to constructive criticism so DO NOT HESITATE to comment
Relationships: Ana Bray/Female Guardian (Destiny)
Series: Karnaca [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909798





	Episode 2 : "3D"

Date : 08 feb 3063

After Numiri's activation , it became clear that the ship's AI had her own agenda to fulfill,   
A lot of hidden subsystems were activated , and Numiri was super elusive about their specific functions.  
Since the whole team and the frames were living on the ship ( Even if it was grounded, the fusion reactor was working perfectly) it was just a matter of time before the encryption lock put on the engine's systems was broken by the combined power of the three ghosts and Deidra's expertise.

On the CIC*, the team was discussing the alarming news of the city.

-And i know none of us like him anyway! He's infuriating! I don't trust him one bit! Sketchy rat motherfucker!

Akai was roaming the conference room furiously, another one of her hunter* acquaintances had chosen to side with the Drifter* instead of the Vanguard*. Rosetta was sitting at the conference table, nodding silently but vehemently while Deidra was standing at the edge of the table, absentmindedly letting her fingers work on the EPS relays she was supposed to fix.

-I mean he IS always doing some weird shit, and his control of the Taken* is pretty extensive, which would not be a problem if it wasn't used for his personal gain.

-Agreed, also what's this now about maiming his ghost*???what kind of absolute asshole is he??

Oganok was hovering next to her, he seemed very unsettled by this.Rosetta signed at them and to her ghost Artemis, who was rolling around on the table.  
"Who can do such a horrible thing? I would die before hurting you!"  
The little disco ball shaped ghost took off and flew directly to her guardian's neck to nudge herself against it, something she did often to show her affection.

-So you think he's corrupted by the Darkness*? Or just a selfish fucker? I don't trust him but I'm not quite sure what to make of him. Shaxx* seems to trust the guy to some extent, he helped him set up Gambit* afterall. And it's not like the Vanguard is doing a bang up job either lately.

-you disagree with Zavala's* decision to stand down from the feud with Uldren and the barons* last year? 

Akai was a bit surprised, she always thought their leader would always support decisions aimed at protecting the civilians. This was remarkably uncharacteristic of her.

-no no, actually i support it, you know i wasn't a big fan of the reef* even before but now after all that has happened, the death , or let's say it the murder of one guardian is not worth putting the whole city in jepoardy again, especially so soon after the red war*. I'm surprised at Ikora to be honest, I've worked with her for more than a century and I've never seen her lose sight of her duties like that. 

Numiri knocked at the window of the conference room, only to enter without awaiting an answer. They were carrying a bag of pears them and Charles had been harvesting earlier that day. Because of the comms system, Numiri was in fact always listening to everything on the ship,(except in the rooms because they had decided privacy was important and had changed their protocols accordingly) 

-Akai told me she was disappointed in them too, specifically about the Warmind* business . Pear anyone?

Akai and Rosetta raised their hands . Numiri handed them out while putting forward a case detailing what the three guardians* had told them about the recent behaviour of the vanguard and other guardians in general.

-Of course having never met any of them personally it’s not very pertinent to make my own analysis, but you three seem pretty upset about it, so it would only seem natural that other guardians are too, maybe even enough to defect and join with someone they believe capable of making hard decisions when the time comes?

-good point, the thing is we know next to nothing of the Drifter, my sources in Owl sector* tell me he was a shadow of yore for a time, calling himself Dredgen hope, he was among the first risen, but not a warlord. It’s very hard to get coherent intel on what he was before the city age. His intentions are indecipherable, maybe he Does have humanity’s best interest at heart, maybe he is as selfish as he seems. We have no idea, and that’s what scares me, the fact that guardians, even old and experienced like Jodhpur-7 , are willing to follow him blindly is terrifying. He’s not as charismatic as rezil azir though , not as clearly corrupted either.

Deidra was speaking calmly but everyone could feel the anger in her voice. She was softly hammering her fist into her own hand to make her point.

-we’re just not prepared enough, the red war is surely not the same conflict humanity will face, and it nearly wiped us out. A fifth of all guardians, dead, for good! We can’t let that happen again, and now the survivors are running fools errands for the Spider* or that insufferable parasite the reef calls a queen!

Akai was more and more concerned , she really expected her captain to reassure them, instead she was just as afraid as they were. 

-the Traveler* came back though, it can’t be all negative either. And RASPUTIN* is more or less on our side now.

-About that too we know nothing,- the guardian turned to Numiri, who had taken up a seat at the table - the lines of code you received during the collapse show that the Warmind might have played a bigger part than the archives tell us in the traveler’s “decision” to stay in Sol.

-How’s the situation in the dreaming city by the way? 

Numiri was uncomfortable speaking about RASPUTIN , given that any data they had received from the warmind* could have been aimed at corrupting them and enslaving them for their own purposes and not necessarily to be used as historical fact.

-shit’s bad , the blight is taking hold, and the time loop created by Riven is making things worse, guardians run around in the city like it’s a challenge, but the curse is no joke, the awoken dimension as a whole could suffer a great deal , I know you’re not particularly close to your people Akai , but you really should go take a look, Petra is there most of the time I’m sure she’d be happy to see you.

-I'm not gonna lie, I really want to avoid playing into Mara’s hand, she’s a manipulative monster and she only profits from the suffering of her own people, she’s no queen of mine, and I have nothing in common with the other awoken. When we needed them they told us to fuck off and NOW they need our help? Fuck that noise.

The little woman took to pacing again, ragingly chomping on her pear, stopping only one second to say “hmchsverighood” with a mouth full of fruit.

Artemis flew to the middle of the table, sign that she wanted to talk for both herself and her guardian 

-We need allies, and we can’t ask the settlements on Earth, they barely can defend themselves, they don’t trust either the city , the vanguard or even guardians, and who can blame them, when the titans* built the wall they also turned their back on the rest of the world. It’s very nice to pretend we are “the last city in the world “ but it’s a flat out lie, only a third of humanity lives there, yet the Vanguard will spare no resources to help anyone else. We need a global approach, Ana was right about that, a system wide approach.

-this was the plan I had with this ship to be honest , when i discovered it I wanted to use it as a mobile base of operation, maybe even a relief system for remote settlements, we have fantastic technologies we could share with them.

The ghost and the small guardian were now discussing logistics on replicating shield generators and food processing machines. Deidra, her , was thinking about something else entirely.

-we need the Eliksny, Variks has gone underground since Cayde’s* murder, we need someone who could unite the Eliksni* in their own interest and in ours, we can share this Earth with them, this system, they aren’t so different from us.

-you know we agree on that ! we talked about it a thousand times, but as long as the kells care more about personal power than their people, we won’t see any change, and we can’t interfere in their house affairs, it would only make guardians even more hated among eliksni.

-you know it's already pretty bad right?

-how could I blame them, do you even know how many of them I had to kill at twilight gap*? It was a massacre, they will hate us for generations, and I understand why. This senseless violence needs to be put to an end, they are just desperate for a home, like us.

The three guardians had been sharing this unusual view of the Eliksni for several years already, and with every passing year the feeling was amplified, Diedra had taught herself the language to facilitate communication, offering them at each turn the opportunity to walk away unharmed from confrontation. Few had taken up on her offer, too few to her taste.

-Sobek to Akai, your analysis is done, you can go ahead with your project safely.

-oh boy! Can’t wait to try them! 

She left the conference table in a hurry, before any of the crew had time to ask what that was about. The two guardians and the Exo looked at each other, clearly looking for answers on this mysterious project.

-Not a clue - Answered Artemis, doing the little move she usually did to signify a shrug.

-Num you have something on this? You must have heard something?

-I have , but she asked not to tell, it’s supposed to be a surprise .

The tone of the exo* sounded so excited, like a kid before a present.

-just a hint, it has to do with Ana , and I’m not saying more than that!

-oh come on! You can’t leave us hanging like that!

Since her first visit on the Karnaca , Ana had been staying several nights and days on the ship, giving advice on some systems while taking notes on some others she wasn't familiar with. The two women had spent a lot of time together lately, and it had done wonders for Akai’s mood, she was radiating (literally ,as an awoken) joy and excitement. It was rather intense, almost annoying sometimes, hearing her all day rambling about how pretty her eyes were, how soft to the touch her back was , how comforting her neck was… like, we get it, you’re falling in love, now try to align this osmium carbide lattice on the power relay or the attitude thrusters will fry when we try to use them.

In reality the two guardians and the rest of the crew were very happy for her.

-Ok ok, it has to do with their 9 months anniversary, which coincides with the festival you call crimson days if I remember correctly .

This was a figure of speech as Numiri had a perfect memory, down to the nanosecond due to the almost infinite data storage space on both their quantum black boxes.

-why is Ball involved then??

Deidra shrugged   
-fuck if I know!

\--------

Akai was lying down on her back in the med bay (technically science lab number 3 , the only one with something looking like a bed where someone could lay down more or less comfortably. It was on the to do list in engineering , “ make an actual bio bed” but since none of the guardians or synthetics ever needed it , it was pretty much skipped every time they went over the list.)  
Her eyes and neck were hurting terribly, everything was still a blur, but every passing second was bringing more details and colours to her eyes.

-Your normal vision should come back in 20 minutes, maybe less considering your healing speed.

-Yeah i can already make out most of the stuff, how long do I have to wait before activating it though.

-12 hours

-что ? Oh come on!

-I’m kidding, you can turn them on as soon as your normal vision comes back.

She was so excited, the gifts she had received were so cool she was feeling like a little kid before dawning day (or what she was imagining kids felt before dawning day as she was rezzed as an adult and had no memories of her previous life)  
The pain in her eyes was resorbing fast, only remained the pain in her neck, the implant was in the back of the skull but a little part of the wiring was crossing over internally to her brain stem . She knew it was only temporary as the wiring was only designed to force new nerves to be created in its place before dissolving, but having metallic wiring in your neck was pretty scary. And painful.

Three days earlier, for crimson days , the celebration of love in the city, Ana had gifted her two relics, two pieces of golden age technology thought to be lost to time, she had found a way to build them again after finding the blueprints and materials in one of the BrayTech* underground research complex, and built them in secret to surprise her girlfriend with.

The first was a pair of augmented reality lenses, surgically implanted in the cornea , the same kind she had , extremely useful for recon, originally invented for scouts and other long range soldiers, they had a internal memory compatible with the data streams on the Karnaca (must have been a standard at the time), meaning she could upload new data directly from the ship, like the frames .   
The second one was more advanced, it was a piece of experimental biotechnology, a prototype universal translator, which in time blended almost entirely with the tissues , eliminating the threat of EMP’s* or other interference. Indeed, initially equipped with a small microphone, the module progressively builds new nerve connexions with the brain and the ears. This tech was classified, even during the golden age, cutting edge technology really, it was capable of instantly translating any language in its database and making up a translator matrix on the fly for unknown ones.  
The research indicated it needed exposure to the language for several minutes before doing so though.

Ana had rigged the two techs to work in symbiosis , allowing the lenses to communicate with the implant and vice versa, expanding the capabilities of the two tools immensely (like reading directly in another language, adding any new ones from databases directly from a snapshot…)

It was a kingly gift , Akai realized that . Hers on the other hand was more intimate, less technological.  
She had found in the Karnaca’s database a poem written by young Anastasia Bray when she was 16 , more than 700 years ago, published by her proud father. 

-Can I begin the upload of our database already?

-Who do you think you’re talking to? I did it three days ago when you handed them out to me for the safety analysis !

-My man!! (like Denzel Washington says it)

She proceeded to rub her eyes absentmindedly on her way to the hall hands meeting Deidra had called in the conference room. She bumped (literally) into Michael on the way, head first into the metal.

-oh sorry Micah, I guess it’s not all back yet !

-What’s not back?

-I’ll show you later! You’ll see it’s so cool!

She ran ahead with a big smile , only to bang the side of the door . Everybody looked at her with concerns but nobody said anything. 

Deidra was walking back and forth at the end of the table, visibly troubled by something.  
Everyone was already sitting down in the room except Numiri, which wasn’t a problem since they didn't needed their body to be present to participate in the briefing.

-Thanks for joining everyone. Numiri just informed me of two things.  
First one, congratulations everyone, the ship is fully finished, all our hours of hard work have paid off, all the systems are back online. Now second thing, the encryption lock on the engines has just been broken. We are officially Operational. The whole ship is prepped for anything .

The crew chatted among themselves congratulating their friends on a job well done, commenting on things like “ you did so well on the plasma relays! “ “yeah but have you seen Toress’s work on the MPD thrusters? Outstanding!” Rosetta was high fiving the people closest to her.

-Now the question is, do we operate this mobile base as a secret or do we reveal ourselves to the vanguard? I think our first move should reflect our intentions.

-Our first move should be looking for allies.

A myriad of “agreed/ yeah that would be the best thing” accompanied Michael’s statement.

-You all elected me as captain but I will always value your input ,so now I think we should decide together what our next step is.

-mmh, looking for allies would be for the best if we consider long terms but the thing is besides the eliksni and some awoken, the list of potential allies is rather short.

Numiri’s voice echoed through the comms system:

-It doesn't have to be.

Immediately after they had spoken, all airlocks were sealed, the shields engaged ,while the lights turned to purple ish blue .  
The whole crew suddenly felt dizzy, like compressed into a pipe (even the frames) the sensation was so powerful that the organic crewmembers fell unconscious.

When they woke up the ship was sitting in space.

They could see the stars from the CIC’s windows.

Akai was the first to speak:

-чё за галима?????

They all got to the bridge in a hurry, without answering the question, in time to see Numiri sitting at the conn . They addressed the crew with an excited voice ( even though Numiri always spoke with an excited voice) "yo come take a look at this!" Saying so they raised the opaque shields covering the bridge .

They were in high orbit over Earth ,on the night side, just in time for a beautiful sunrise.

Blacksmith was the first to see it. 

-This isn't Earth.

A silence followed this declaration.

-This isn't even our solar system - added Torres.

\- what?- Rosetta was still nauseous 

Two other stars had just risen following the first sun sun

-Ours doesn't have a ternary star system . 

The crew could not believe what they were seeing,as the two distant and the closer red dwarf was now visible. they were possibly light years away from their latest position, no ship could do that. They had never even heard of such a thing. Even at their maximum warp speed the jumpships would take years to reach other star systems.  
The guardians and frames reacted very differently, yet at the exact same time , questions flew toward Numiri:

“WHAT THE HELL??/ how did you do that?/ so where are we?/uugh????”

This wave of contradictory emotions took Numiri by surprise, they started hesitantly:

-Welcome to Proxima centauri b , we are 4.9 light years from the sol system, as to how i did that, that's the whole purpose of this ship, and it’s my mission. The SKAĐI project built the only two ships in existence with a dimensional displacement drive, or “3D” as they called it.

Everyone was still feeling a bit off because of the transit , Numiri however didn't seem to be affected, they were their usual cheerful self.  
Rosetta was trying very hard not to throw up:  
\- uuungh? I.., wait what?

-Basically it uses quantum superposition to launch an echo of the ship to the destination and then interdimensional travel to switch places with it , during this time the ship exists in two places at once, which is the source of the discomfort you experienced. Sorry about that by the way, it is a minor side effect, with no lasting symptoms , only the first times are painful, your brain gets used to it eventually

-Dimensional travel?- Deidra asked -, you're using Vex tech?

-Yeah isn't that shit like super dangerous??- Cut Akai

-It is indeed a result of the study of Vex technology by Clovis Bray’s scientists , but unlike that sword you are carrying , it is not created from vex components, it is a wholly human developed technology.

Everyone turned to Akai, who blushed (it was hard to see on blue skin, as blushing meant turning very light purple) 

-You mean Worldline Zero? I knew to some extent it was inspired by vex tech , but I thought the Brays forbade direct integration of alien technology. 

-Oh they did, but Clovis Bray believes the rules he created don't apply to him.

-Wait "apply"? Present?? Is he still alive ? How do you know that? 

\- Who the fuck cares?, I couldn't care less about a megalomaniac scientist even if he was a member of the vanguard! I want to know if we can go home!!. 

Rosetta had finished her sentence with a shout. She who usually was so calm about everything. Neither Akai or Deidra had seen her so distraught before. (They weren't with her during the fall of the tower though) They were suddenly taking in how far and isolated they actually were. 

Several seconds of silence passed by, until finally Oganok broke it.

-Sorry to bother you guys but is that an artificial satellite? 

They all looked out the window, what seemed at first like a small satellite grew in size as it got closer and closer .  
The tech looked familiar, almost too familiar.

-Numiri, Shields ! Power up the weapons too but don't lock on.

Deidra materialized her armor around her in the second it took her to get on the captain’s chair. 

-Battle station everyone! 

As soon as Deidra started talking , they all had taken their postes like they trained to the last months. The lights on the bridge (and everywhere on the ship) shifted to orange red while Torres and Charles were running toward their posts in engineering and in hydroponics, securing the samples.

\- Rosetta, sensors? Do we have anything?

-The energy signature is quite weak, I read trace amount of Teflon in the fuel tanks, and the magnetic field of the engine is weak but still active, this might be a form of PPT engine .

-PPT? Is it alien?

-I don’t think so, Pulsed Plasma thrusters were the main form of small engines in the late 21st century on Earth. So i’d say definitely human. This thing could be one of the unmanned probes humanity launched when they were developing their interstellar tech.

-You telling me this thing has been in orbit for a thousand years here?- Enquired Oganok

-Probably less, the trip itself with this kind of tech must have taken hundreds of years .

-can you enhance the visual Numiri? 

-sure!

The tiny dot in the distance grew quickly to fill one side of the bridge's window.   
It looked like the space stations of old, with solar panels and beams running through the structure. It was in pretty bad shape. The port solar panel was partially torn down and the whole structure was floating in small debris. Overall the structure wasn't huge, barely enough to accommodate 4 or 5 humans inside.

-Deactivate weapons, this is not a threat. Rosetta agreed and cut power to the weapon system, Deidra was very rarely wrong in her assumptions, which is why they elected her as captain anyway.

-this isn't a probe , it’s an early space station. Numiri, what do you have on the registration number?

-the serial number on the side indicates it’s a comm buoy launched from one of the Amrita project ships.

-do we have a scan of the planet? The system? Any other signals?

-I have debris in several places in the system, notably on the moon of this planet. No other EM signals in the whole system.

Numiri looked troubled for a second, like something was wrong, but when they started talking again the feeling was gone. Deidra had noticed and was pretty suspicious of this behaviour.

-Michael, Rosetta, prep for an EVA, we’ll see if we can get the data modules from the craft.

Rosetta was already wearing her armor, she had changed at the same time as her captain. Michael on the other hand did not require one as she had no lungs and feared no damage from cosmic radiations or extreme temperatures. Plus she enjoyed the feeling of weightlessness.

The two of them were armed with small sidearms, just in case , hoping they would not need them. They were standing in the armory, behind the bridge , waiting for the signal to be transmated directly into space. Michael was checking one last time Rosetta’s helmet , the breathing apparatus specifically, when Numiri’s voice sounded over their individual comms:

“Two to transport , Target Zone 2 meters 15 cm off the starboard solar panel. go”

The materialization process was extremely quick, less than a second, the guardian was so used to it she didn’t even blink at the change of scenery. Michael however had “falses memories” of it, technically she never experienced it herself, she only had the residual feeling of habit passed on by Dahlia 99-40 tactical memories.   
When she materialized she let out a small “weeeeeeeee” on the comms before realizing everyone had heard her .

-sorry, I got carried away.

-you’re right to enjoy it! Don’t be afraid ,we’re not only working, it’s important to get fun from where you can!

Once more Michael realized how different her crew was from the humans she had met when she was a security frame on the SKADI project .They really cared about how she and the other synthetics felt.

Numiri patched themselves through the comms,their voice more excited than ever.

-this system , the closest star system to ours by the way …

Behind them a voice erupted in laughter, followed by a "please focus on the important stuff"

-yes sorry yes okay so this system was the destination of the Exodus white , however i feel no signals whatsoever from the system, i doubt it is here or that they successfully managed to establish a colony here. This buoy was certainly launched by them before whatever happened that prevented them from accomplishing their mission.

Michael was looking directly at the planet surface, the day was setting slowly beneath them, now the surface was well lit, she could see what it was made of . A red and yellow desert, sand, rocks but not much else.

-this planet does not seem to be very nice to settle, i see no water and the atmosphere looks REALLY thin.

Rosetta took a peak too, the surface was almost as barren as Mars pre-terraformation by the Traveler, she was shocked. who would choose to come live here, surely they knew what the planet looked like at the time they sent the colony ship?  
She chose to concentrate on opening the hatch, severely damaged by the years and by several small objects' impacts. 

-The hatch mechanism is completely destroyed , we're going to have to cut through the first layer , Artemis can you do that?

The little ghost didn't even respond, she started focusing a very small laser cutter at the faulty pieces , cutting them away one by one.

As the metal and ceramics pieces were detaching themselves and floating in space , she dematerialized them, so none would become a hazard in case of an explosive decompression. 

Back on the bridge the rest of the crew was watching avidly from the magnified windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was inside the defunct spacecraft.

The hatch mechanism finally gave way, leaving enough room for the two friends to get through.  
Rosetta went in first .

-What do you see?

-we're only in the airlock Num, we need to get through before doing anything .

The interior of the airlock was not as damaged as the exterior of the craft, it was actually in a pretty good condition.  
Artemis was scanning through the airlock door.

-there's no atmosphere on the other side, it's the same vacuum as this side, I theorize that there is a hull breach somewhere .

It took four hands to turn the seal of the airlock, it was heavily blocked, probably by the years of decay.

When the door gave way, the inside of the craft was finally revealed.   
Dead bodies- four of them, humans, perfectly frozen in time, they almost looked like they were asleep. They were huddled together in a tight embrace. They must have seen their death coming , unable to fix their craft, left alone around a barren planet.

-we have 4 bodies, human, death by exposure it seems, should i tag them for transport? 

-why are they people in a comms buoy? 

The team left on the bridge was surprised, these “probes” were designed in the early golden age to be self-sufficient, with only an access for maintenance , not enough life support for a group.

-Michael , Artemis, I’m sending you the craft schematics, I just found them in my database. Can you take out the primary data node? It’s located near the main computer interface . 

Numiri cut the comms for a second, and turned to face their captain.

-What should we do with the bodies captain? Is it right to leave them here? 

-I’d like to see them.

Everyone turned to the little voice that had originated from behind them. Sobek was looking at the spacecraft through the windows of the bridge, near one of the statues framing the entrance .  
Deidra looked at him with a gentle smile.

-Yes of course, I’ll transmat them to Science lab 2 , you can go see them alone if you want.

She reopened the audio channel on her side.

-Ro’, tag the bodies, we’re giving them a funeral.

-copy that, we have the node, should we come back ?

-I’m meeting you in decontamination , tell Numiri when you’re ready to come back. Deidra out.

-Akai you have the ship, Num , scan the entire planet for the most viable site for burial.

She resorbed her armor for a more casual look ( a variant of her uniform, with actual pants. ) , the danger was clearly not coming from this little spacecraft.

As she went through the armory to reach the decontamination room ( directly between the armory and the airlock, the first room Akai had explored when discovering the ship) she felt a spike of sadness for these early explorers, dying alone, so close to their goal, yet so far from their dreams. Were they chasing the same high? Did she lead her crew, her friends to a death just as tragic and useless?

-no , we’re not going to end up like this.

-what was that captain?

Deidra looked up to see that Micah and Rosetta were already in decon, finishing the irradiation procedure , she probably was thinking out loud again, a habit she had picked up during all of her travels. 

-nothing important, do we have something to power up that core?

She was pointing down at the weird mass of wires and metallic parts at Rosetta’s feet.  
Numiri’s voice echoed from the ship’s internal comms system:

-I’m synthesizing an interface as we speak, this is old earth tech, it’s gonna be easy, maybe just a bit slow for this type of data storage tech to unspool.

-we’re in no hurry, we have to take care of the bodies too.

-right, about that…- started Rosetta

-yes?

-do you think Sobek is going to rez one of them?

-honestly I have no idea, at least if he does, this new guardian won’t be alone for their first breath.

-I wonder what it’s like to wake up for the first time surrounded by allies, not enemies.

The two guardians were looking strangely nostalgic, none of them really spoke often of what it felt to be resurrected, Michael was fascinated by this but she thought it was probably rude to ask. This time she wasn’t gonna let the opportunity fly by.

-do you both remember your first resurrection? Was it painful? Were you scared?

Rosetta took some time to process the question looking thoughtfully at Artemis who was scanning the data core with care, while Deidra answered directly, she had time to open up about his over the years, this wasn’t the first time she talked about it.

-the first thing I remember is fear, you feel so vulnerable, there is a whole world in front of you, for most of us ruins, skeletons, broken weapons, you know what things are, you know the words, but you know nothing of you, who you are, what you are, then a voice , soothing, telling you what you are to them, what they are to you, you’re never truly alone, most civilians don’t understand that our ghost is a part of ourselves, it’s more than just a piece of the traveller, it’s a piece of you. 

Blacksmith appeared over her shoulder, then moved close to her cheek, she noticed him and gave him a little kiss on the shell.  
She got back to her explanation, with a more joyful voice this time.

-so yes I was scared, a lot actually, it’s a traumatic experience arriving to a body that is not yours, as an adult, with a personality, I often wondered if my psyche was modeled after the first owner of this body, or if Blacksmith created it unknowingly.  
We had a lot of time to discover each other during my first days, it was positive new experiences one after the other for a good three days when the house of devils found me.  
Since then i had to fight almost every day of my life, for my survival but also for the survival of those who can’t defend themselves.

Rosetta looked a ther with eyes full of love and respect, she had heard the story before but everytime she had the opportunity to hear about her captain’s life was a real pleasure.

-That’s beautifully said. My first resurrection was different, I was rezzed in the middle of a warzone, guardians were fighting a fallen tank on top of my grave!

She laughed a bit but clearly her heart wasn’t in it.

-The first thing Artemis did was hand me a weapon and tell me rise, as I was a warrior of the light now, destined to protect humanity.  
I had no time for fear, no time for doubts, i saw people die, and at this point i had no idea guardians could come back, so i did the only thing i thought i could do, i fought, I killed, it was pretty traumatic I’m not gonna lie. I had no idea who these people were or why they were trying to kill me… me... 

She looked in the distance for a second.

-Me… I had no idea who I was either, all I felt were instincts, “fight” , “kill” “survive” these were etched in my adrenaline saturated brain in big fiery letters, I unlocked my light by chance, and became a striker when I destroyed the tank with my hands. I had no idea where the lightning came from, what it meant, and what was the actual extent of it.   
The fireteam brought me back to the city with them, I didn't understand why they were gesturing at me this way. To me, sound was not something that existed, the only voice i had heard, ever, was Artemis. It’s only then that she found a way to patch her audio input into my brain. This was painful, the world was so noisy all of a sudden, everyone was talking over each other, nobody was listening to what seemed important.

-It’s true that i keep forgetting that you’re deaf, we’re so used to you hearing through Artemis that it’s hard to see if you don’t know. I’m sorry, keep going.

-I’ve told you already how they nicknamed me the written one before one of the cryptarch of the tower gave me the name Rosetta ?

-No, I mean Akai told me the story but I’ve never heard it from you. You never chat much about this part of your life, neither do you captain.

-I mean to me it’s been a very long time, my first resurrection happened over two hundred years ago, it’s not a memory I revisit often. And I know Rosetta here still feels some shame about the way she handled herself in her youth, which is okay, we are allowed to grow, even if we can’t grow old!

-yeouch, terrible !

Deidra softly punched her friend’s arm, she had a habit of shooting down her attempts at jokes, although she agreed this one was rather bad. She turned back toward Michael. The frame was giggling.

-Micah If you want you can read my old journals, I keep physical copies of them in the library upstairs, feel free to dig in, when I was younger I documented pretty much everything I felt and lived in these books, I took out the steamy stuff don’t worry.

-Captain, sorry for the interruption, the interface is ready, come to the CIC to plug the data core.

-On my way Numiri!

-I can't wait to see what’s on this!  
Rosetta was seemingly excited about this discovery, she picked up the core (which probably was weighing more than deidra ) like it was a fruit on a table, dematerialised her armor to get to her signature blue dress , again with no shoes.

Deidra looked at her friends feet with light exasperation , she low key turned to Michael as they were exiting the decon room.

-why can’t this woman put on some goddam shoes when she’s on duty!

-we’re ALWAYS on duty boss!

\--------

Akai had left her post at the conn, Numiri’s body had replaced her, while it wasn’t necessary (Numiri could fly the ship from anywhere, actually no, Numiri WAS the ship, they had full control over every systems at all time , no matter the distance, even if their exo body was destroyed) she felt safer knowing someone she trusted was at the helm.

Not to mention the fact that she was DYING of curiosity on what they would be about to pull out from the data core. She also wanted to go see the bodies, see who were these early explorers. 

Toress was there too, actually only charles was missing, maybe he was still busy securing things in the garden. Well he had access to the comms anyway, he was probably listening from afar, if he was interested he knew what to do.

The actual core looked rather decrepit, but what was she expecting from a piece of ancient technology that had been sitting in space for over 700 years?

-let’s crack this baby open! 

-Im going to project the interesting contents in the briefing room, you can all take a seat if you want. 

-thanks Numiri!

Once seated, holographic interfaces sprouted from the bloodwood table , showing all sorts of juicy data about the craft, and more importantly , the fate of the Exodus White.  
Torres started with one of the logs:

-This here says that the planet was caught in a solar flare, anything flamable on the surface was destroyed and a good chunk of the atmosphere was stripped off. This explains why it looks like that now.

-was it after or before the arrival of the colonists? Did they manage to settle the world before that? Was there life already on arrival?

-hey I’m reading this at the same time as you Akai, I don’t know yet, oh nevermind, here it is, no the solar flare happened between 50 and 200 years before the ship arrived, they extensively scanned the planet though and they found dry lake and riverbeds, as well as carbon scorch marks consistent with vegetation, carbon based vegetation.

-the four people in science lab 2, they jettisoned themselves from the Exodus White, they have logged almost everything concerning the event it’s incredible!  
Oh no… they were a family, here , see?

Rosetta projected the intel on her screen to the big one on the wall at the end of the room,   
The report read as such :

Edalyn Develis /head scientist  
Thalia Develis /geneticist  
Matthias Bialinicka /maintenance engineer  
Vicente Barragàn / Exobiologist

-Apparently Thalia was the eldest daughter of Dr Edalyn Develis, oldest of three daughters all embarked on the Exodus. It must have been horrible to leave them behind!

-but why did they leave? If the ship was damaged beyond repair where is it? I see no other debris in orbit?

“Actually there is some debris in the system, and something artificial impacted on the smallest moon of this planet too.”

-we’ll go take a look when we’re done with this. Michael ,do you have something?

-I have the last lines of code shared by the mothership to the comm buoy, once translated they say that the reactor suffered a containment breach, cutting whole sections of the ship off from the rest, ha it’s weird it’s coded in JULIA , that shit is so old!! Sorry, focusing,   
The schematics of the Exodus white show that it was powered by a “kugelblitz”, whatever the fuck that is?

-Quantum singularity engine, it uses an artificially created micro black hole to generate power for it’s engine , it’s relativistic space travel, very old! I had no idea any of the AMRITA project’s ships used this kind of tech! Wasn’t warp tech discovered before Exodus White launch? Why use an outdated and incredibly complicated method of propulsion instead of a safer, faster alternative? 

Torres, the resident engine expert (she was programmed with every single engines designed by humanity until her creating in her internal memory, as such she was probably the greatest expert on propulsion in the world) was trying to wrap her head around these facts, it was weird, she felt something was wrong, she had read extensively the schematics of all the Amrita project from what she could scrounge up from the ship’s database but nowhere she had seen any mention of a quantum singularity engine.

-something doesn’t add up, in their final logs , the four crew members mentioned they had no idea the planet was barren, but according to Numiri’s database the Solar flare in question happened in 2052, it was well recorded at the time. They would have known about the impact on the planet then, why did they choose this one?

-I’m reading the transcript of their audio logs, they kept documenting as they were dying, this is horrible, I feel so sorry for them! 

Rosetta had tears rushing to her eyes, and she wasn’t the only one, Deidra too was feeling horrible, she had just read the confession of a mother who had abandoned two of her daughters to save the third, and failed at that too, it was heartbreaking to read. 

-she knew she had no chance of going back with a comm buoy , this isn’t even an escape pod, they were condemned the moment they left the ship…

-the astrophysicist catalogued everything he saw very clearly, apparently the ship vanished in an explosion of red light , and the only debris left in its place were two or three engine pieces. The explosion was coherent with a release of concentrated hawking radiations. He concluded that the black hole swallowed the ship and then evaporated due to failed containment.

-450 lives lost in a second… This is a tragedy. At least it explains why the exodus white is never mentioned anywhere ever again in documents on Earth.

-you think they knew. On Earth, you think they saw the explosion? That they were aware of what happened here?

Akai had spoken in a low voice, she clearly wasn’t feeling great either, it was understandable , space travel was her dearest dream, she had played the moment where she would explore the stars over and over in her head but her first experience was only marked by death and despair. Deidra reached for her hand on the table, taking it into her own, gripping it strongly.

-maybe, it could have been written somewhere, stored as a failure in a bigger project, then lost in the collapse.

-at least the passengers didn’t suffer.

-what?

Rosetta zoomed in on the data she was reading.

-the central computer indicates that all 415 of the colonists were still frozen in cryogenics when they separated from the ship , and the annihilation occurred less than 30 minutes later so only the crew was awake.

-So that’s why she couldn’t save her other daughters, by the traveller, what a horrible decision to make! At least she got to say goodbye to one of them.

-oh hey I have the full crew manifest here, all 450 of them, I think I know what to do with them.

Rosetta transferred the intel to her ghost and took off from the table, almost running, she left the CIC .

-what do you think was her idea?

-with her you never know, but I have no doubt she’ll tell us when she feels it’s ready. I think she wants to get her mind off this sad story, usually when she wants to think about something else she isolates herself in her forge.

They kept reading bits of information on the ship and on the logs made by the four “survivors” until Sobek materialised in the room, quietly as his habit .

His silence was enough of an answer to the question everyone was burning to ask, so no one actually did ask it.

-Numiri, can you archive these files in the database? We have a duty to safeguard them now. 

“Certainly”

-I’m going back to the bridge, see if i can find these engine debris Dr Barragan spoke of, maybe we can run a more precise analysis on them.

Deidra stood up from her chair, wiped away her tears and left the room

-wait I think I had enough for now too, I’ll get back to the helm.

-you guys don’t have to keep going you know, you can stop if you want, this stuff is important but it’s also pretty depressing and we’ll have other things to discuss soon. If you want to join Akai and me on the bridge you’re welcome.

-Actually I think I’m gonna go join Charles in the garden, give him a short version of the story, I need fresh air I think.

-Alright Micah. Torres? Bridge? 

-Nah I want to analyse these schematics in more detail, I have a weird feeling. Something definitely feels wrong about them.

While walking down the ladder from the CIC to the Bridge, Deirda’s mind was an ocean of worries, the situation of the Exodus White was resonating with theirs, they were also lost in an unknown place, alright, not that unknown but uncharted still. She knew , or at least she thought she knew Numiri enough to trust them but this move they had pulled, teleporting the ship over 4 light years in the blink of an eye, without asking them first? What the hell was that? It was pretty much in character, sure, Numiri had a hard time controlling their impulses but this was on a whole new level. Did the AI know from the start they were going to teleport the ship once the engines were operational?   
Wait no, she remembered what the AI had said before engaging the drive .   
“It doesn't have to be” … they were talking about allies, so that pretty much settled it, Numiri wanted to ask the hypothetical colonies for help. 

This conclusion was the least nefarious of all the theories she could have come up with.   
These were the acts of an hyperactive child with good intent and terrifyingly powerful means of executing their will.

She was gonna have to sit with the whole crew and talk about what to do next. For the first time in a couple hundred years , she was lost, she didn’t know what to do.

-””the red war also took you by surprise, when we were severed from the light, I think that was our lowest point ,for both of us, don’t forget how we bounced back from this catastrophe, stronger than ever! this is nothing compared to it.””

Blacksmith was addressing her directly through their telepathic link, to avoid saying such things in earshot of Akai, the little ghost knew that the crew needed to feel unwavering resolve from their captain, from their oldest friend.

-“”the circumstances are so different, there is no immediate threat right now, but i am now directly responsible for their safety, they elected me as Captain, I can’t fail them! What if we get stuck here, what if we end up like them, frozen, floating endlessly through space, what if instead of allies we only find old cadavers and angry gods .””

-”“we’re guardians, and damn powerful ones, and even without the light we find a way, we prevail,we survive! This is our family, I love them as much as you do, we will keep them safe, and they will keep on dazzling us with their incredible potential. You chose them as companions years ago, and you were right, they are special, but now it’s time to trust them too. Trust them to make the right choices when you can’t. ””

During this whole silent conversation, Akai had taken her post back at the helm, steering the ship toward the smallest moon, where the explosion was said to have happened  
Deidra, her, had chosen to sit at Rosetta’s post, handling the ship’s active scanners and different detection arrays.

-I detect man made alloys illuminating the area with gamma radiation here , get the shields up Numiri.

The AI didn’t respond verbally but the force field englobing the ship appeared instantly .

-it’s no use transmating these debris they will only irradiate the hangar, plus they look like simple heat shield parts, we’re going to have to find something else to analyse.

Akai nodded ,then suddenly turned her head left, toward the little moon, she got up from her seat and looked intensely at the surface of the celestial body.  
-there is an escape pod crashed on the surface. Same composition as the comm buoy .

Deidra blinked once or twice, trying to look at the crash site but the only thing she could see with her bare eyes were craters. She tuned the sensors to the little moon and they quickly detected the remains of an escape pod, crashed in one of the southern areas.

-Wow how did you see it? I can’t see anything from up here without the sensors!

-I remembered i had these now!

She pointed at her eyes, where orange shapes were dancing around in the cornea. 

-biotech augments , courtesy of Anya ! Sobek helped me surgically implant them in my eyes earlier today but i had completely forgotten about them until now. They are VERY precise ! it’s amazing what i can zoom in!

-that’s … pretty amazing indeed, are they safe to use on an awoken?

-Sobek ran tests for several days before we installed them. I wouldn’t go ahead with such a dangerous project without double checking first, don’t worry.

Akai’s signature radiant smile was back on, Deidra was happy to see her in better shape than earlier, the reading of the E. White’s log had taken a toll on everyone on the ship, but their joyous nature would eventually come back, she was sure of it.She smiled back at her friend and pushed on the internal broadcast icon on her console.

-Deidra to all crew, we’ve found a crashed escape pod on this moon, I’m transmating down to take a closer look.

Several ‘acknowledged/understood “ sounded over the comms.

-do you want to come?

-I… no I don’t think so, I’ll see what Rosetta is up to, maybe I can give her a hand.

She promptly left after asking Numiri to take over as pilot.

Deidra materialised her armor and her helmet, chose a weapon in the armory, a Drang, a small sidearm, more as a precautionary measure than the actual intent to fight once on the surface of the moon. In any case her Spear was always on her , but better safe than sorry.  
She came back to the bridge to program her own transmat, setting up the target coordinates a few meters off the crash site, then she disappeared in shower of light.

Once down on the ground, she jumped to test the gravity, her helmet indicated .17 but she wanted to see for herself how it felt. To her delight she flew about 20 meters into the air before landing softly in the dust. This was the occasion for her to have a bit of fun too.

The crash site was remarkably well preserved , the escape pod had performed a soft landing, but the vicinity had been impacted by small asteroids over the years, so it looked like it had crashed. One of the landing strut was broken, but overall it looked like that was the only visible damage.   
The warlock raised her weapon and asked her ghost to scan the structure of the craft for energy sources or , you never know, life signs 

-Nothing, although the fuel tanks are almost empty, this pod has been operated continuously for at least several days. I think we might have the same scenario as the comm buoy, it’s not impossible another team managed to reach the escape pods before the ship was destroyed.

-do you detect organic matter inside?

-I’m getting too much parasites on my scans,residual hawkings radiations. This zone is heavily affected, and the craft is even worse.

-could it be harmful for me?

-it already is actually, your armor has already absorbed a considerable amount of radiation, but don’t worry, if it gets to you i’ll heal it. 

Deidra looked at her ghost as to say “could have warned us BEFOREHAND” , the look was enough, he knew exactly what she meant. This wasn’t the first time he forgot to disclose this type of information . well, she was used to it, he could forget this kind of stuff sometimes.  
Instead of apologizing or even acknowledging his little memory failure, he powered up the door and opened the pod.

Inside was what could have been a human being if not for the horrible mutilation that was visible on the corpse, it looked like some awful creature had ripped the body inside out , overgrown tumors were visible everywhere, sprouting directly through the space suit.

Deidra blemished

-what the FUCK can do that to a person???? 

She had to look away, the sight was one of the worst things she had ever seen. Truly horrifying, she knew she was going to have nightmares for a month because of this. Even the awful chemical weapons deployed by the cabal or the SIVA corruption were not as awful.

-what do you want to do with it? 

-them, this was a human being, they deserve the same respect as the others, we’ll bury them on the planet. Keep them in engram form until they are buried though, no need to subject the rest of the crew to such horror. Do they have a name tag like the others?

-yes, although it is weirdly warped, like the metal mutated too.

-what? How can inorganic matter mutate? Do you think it’s the effects of the quantum singularity up close? Yeah that must be it, their cells, their atoms ripped apart. Poor soul.

-it’s possible, however why wasn’t the escape pod visibly affected? 

-I don’t know Blacksmith, we’re touching on phenomena we know nothing about here. This black hole tech was clearly out of control at the time. I don’t understand why they would outfit a whole colony ship with it.

Blacksmith looked at her, hoping to feel more comfort , but his guardian was as distressed as he was, seeing that none of them really wanted to keep talking about it , he hovered to the body and dematerialised it.

-his name was Ugyen Tshering , chief medical officer, born 2062 .

-may he finally find the peace he sought .

She stood in the escape pod for a while, in silence.

“Captain, anything noteworthy down there?”

Numiri’s voice got her out of lethargy 

-we have another body here, we’ll bury him with the others on the planet, the content of the pod is not really interesting. I’m coming back in a few minutes, Deidra out.

She looked one last time at the controls of the pod, before turning around. Only to turn back around quickly, something had caught her eye.  
The emergency release system was intact, this pod had not been launched as an emergency, it had been launched as a shuttle, manually.

-how?... didn’t Torres tell us that these pods took an hour to startup when used as shuttles? That it was one of the great flaws of the tech at the time?

-yeah but not in case of emergency escape.

-the system is still primed, it was released manually, the long way, maybe this specific person knew the ship was gonna blow and had time to escape? No that makes no sense, he would have used it as an escape pod ....

The bright blue ghost flew closer to his guardian.

-It was almost a millennia ago, his motives are a bit irrelevant don’t you think.

Deidra sighted

-you’re right, I don’t know why I suddenly obsess over this, he died, they all died,it’s done, the best thing we can do now is pay our respects and move on, we have our own situation to handle.

-here is my Deidra back!

The guardian smiled at her ghost, even though he couldn't see through her tinted helmet, he knew she was smiling at him, he could feel it through their bond.  
He called the ship for extraction and they both disappeared in a bolt of light.

\--

Rosetta was drawing frantically on her sketchbook, she knew WHAT she wanted, but the shape, the colour was still elusive, she knew it was on the tip of her pen, that she would have to force it out.

-we kinda have to make it metal anyway, the radiations on the planet will damage anything else.  
-I know honey, that’s not what i worry about anymore

Artemis, her ghost , was looking through older sketchbooks , searching for something which could inspire them.

None of them even noticed the door opening and Akai shyly coming into the workshop.

-wow you’re really scratching your head on that uh!

Rosetta jumped away from Akai, startled, she hit her shoulder one one of the shelves (or more accurately her shoulder hit the shelve as the wood of the structure cracked open under the strength and weight of the titan) she smiled when recognizing her best friend .

-you came to give me a hand? 

Akai finger gunned at her friend with a bright smile

-you know it! 

She took a quick look at the small mountain of discarded pages covered in scribble on the floor  
Her friend clearly had gone through several (more like several hundreds) ideas, but she had settled on a sort of curved spike.

-what exactly are you working on? A sculpture?

Rosetta took her eyes off her sketchbook to look at the small woman.

-A memorial, I want to honour these pioneers , make them a monument on the planet at the site of their burial, with all of their names on it , maybe a poem, a song, I’m not sure about that yet.

-A spire like that would be nice, it is kinda similar to the monuments to space made at the beginning of the space age. 

-oh yeah i could draw inspiration from them, do you have some specific in mind?

Akai shook her head, looking sorry

-I do

Oganok appeared over the drawing table, projecting several monuments from the era on the wooden surface.

Rosetta pointed at the one on the far left 

-This one is perfect, i can just modify this, and change that line here, maybe shift this here …

In less than a minute she had sketched out the shape of a beautiful spire, with a simplified model of the exodus white at the end of the spike, while the base was made of hexagonal boxes, each one displaying a golden plaque with a name on it. .

-now the colour, the planet is mostly red, what goes well with red sand?

-I think we should make it bright white, this way it would stand out seen from adobe and close up but not be too much of a nuisance from afar. plus it’s for the exodus WHITE, i think it’s only fair that we make it this way.

Artemis scanned the sketch and from it constructed a 3d model , showing it like it would appear on the surface. She tried several colours before trying bright white.

-wow you were right the white brings out the shape in contrast with the ground! 

-What size do you want to make it? 

Oganok, always the more reasonable of the group, was already stressing about the strain on their resources.

-I don’t know, fifty? Sixty meters high? Nothing too big , I was thinking that we could repurpose the alloys from the comm buoy to make it, this way we don’t lose much. Also we should see with Torres if she can make a low magnetic resonance field around it to protect it from dust and radiation.

-and put solar cells in the spire to provide it with energy! Yeah that's a great idea! 

She opened a channel through her ghost

-Torres can you get to the forge? We have a project that would need your expertise!

-on my way!

The two guardians were fleshing out small details of the structure , like the center of gravity, chemical composition of the alloy , when Torres entered the room.

-what’s good cheesebags?

-what? 

They both turned to watch Torres incredulously .

-cheesebags??

-I, I don’t know! I tried something okay! You’re always throwing nicknames around I thought I might as well give it a shot!

The three of them laughed for a moment before Akai showed her the schematics of the spire.

-mmh I see, nice attention to details, your model is good but the power distribution is off, the field will consume its resources before the solar cells can replenish it if you calibrate it that way.

-Blin! I knew something was weird about the conversion nodules frequencies.

-don’t beat yourself up , power requirements on very long term technologies is one of the hardest things in engineering, if you adjust it to …

She was calculating at incredible speeds in her mind, writing the correct parameters on the virtual interface.

-Here , 358 kilo-hertz , and if you change the structure of the titanium to a corundum semi crystalline shape you can eliminate the pattern enhancer, the titanium will resonate itself at the right frequency, this way it can’t accumulate dust either!

-damn you’re good at this!

-I mean I was literally created for that so it’s not like I can really take credit hahaha!

Rosetta put her hand on the android’s shoulder, looking her straight into the eyes.

-Don’t belittle your skills, your analysis and ideas are yours, you’re more than just the sum of your programming! You’re an amazing engineer and a creator, innovation can’t be programmed, you are an actual creator!

While the experimental frame had no way of expressing emotions on her face , she took Rosetta’s hand in hers and whispered a soft 

-Thank you, you’re so kind to me.

-should we include a subspace beacon too? 

-Oganok’s right, a subspace beacon could transmit the position of the spire , with a message, an ode to these valiant explorers who gave their lives chasing their dreams.

-I’m loading the schematics in the fabricator, if we use the titanium from the derelict craft in orbit over there it should only take us, let’s see , oh, less than 1.58 % of our power supply! Fuck me this ship is powerful! As soon as Deidra comes back from the moon we can go back and dematerialize the buoy and set down to bury the bodies.

“Actually I can dematerialize the comm’s buoy from here, it’s still in my range .”

-Aren't we like 500 000 km away! You really have that kind of reach?! You’re truly incredible Numiri!

“Thank the engineers who designed me and this ship! They knew what they were doing!”

-well load it up then, we need to start the construction as soon as possible!

”Already done, I’m heating up the matter synthesizer as we speak! Captain, anything noteworthy down there?”

They had contacted Deidra in the same breath, keeping the ship-wide broadcast open.

Her answer was inaudible to them though.

\---

The ship was landed in a rock based desert extending as far as the eye could see, far up north were distinct mountains, higher than the Himalayas according to Numiri.  
The dust and rocks on the ground were painting every shade of orange and red possible, breaking their monotonous hue for bits of yellowish-brown lichens , clinging to the biggest rocks , this was the only life form they had found, probably the last surviving remnant of life on this planet, clinging to life in the shadows of the rock formations.

On the surface the temperature was minus 85 degrees Celsius , they were all wearing their full armors, as they contained a heat regulating system sturdy enough to resist exposure to the vacuum of space.

The spire they had constructed was magnificent, a beacon of white light in an ocean of red.  
From the ground , the sky was much darker than anticipated, the atmosphere was thinner than anticipated, there weren’t enough gases in it to scatter the light of the suns like on Earth or Mars. The white metal of the spire was piercing through that thin dark blue sky. The structure itself was beautiful, but the base was a true work of art. Each hexagonal hole in the base was completed by a golden plaque engraved with the name, rank , date of birth and death , as well as a picture of them, they had managed to pull from the ship’s archive.   
From upclose the white titanium looked like pure marble, while the golden hexagons were reflecting the sunlight, creating hundreds of reflections on the grounds encircling the spire, like a colossal disco ball.

On the front of the spire , directly beneath the statue of the exodus white 60 meters higher were engraved these words in several languages:

“We who used to sail the skies , now sail we shall no more .  
Although our minds were star-bound, the shadows of our bodies lie here.”

The bodies had been buried in the city’s traditional way , in a shallow hole dug in the ground by the crew. On the grave they put five of the biggest stones they could find, sanded them to make them into smooth three sided pyramids and on them encrusted the metallic name tags. 

They were all standing as a group, facing the spire, the graves and the horizon of this strange and rusted planet.  
None of them had spoken in about an hour, the task they had set themselves to was exhausting sure but they all felt some kind of solemnity most had never felt before.   
For the three guardians it reminded them a lot of the ceremony to honour the guardians fallen in the red war , All three of them were tearing up inside their helmets.

Akai was the first to go back inside the ship, through the hangar ramp that had been lowered to exit the parts of the spire. When she reached the top of the ramp she turned back one last time and was surprised to see that everyone had followed her.

They spent a few minutes in the decon chamber in the hangar before heading for the Conference room on deck 2, as their captain had told them she would hold an all hands meeting with them when they would be done.

Deirda was waiting for everyone to take a seat.

-thank you for coming. I called this meeting to discuss our future. Numiri might have acted impulsively by displacing us light years away but in a way it might actually be what we need.

Numiri was looking uncomfortable in their chair, everyone was looking at them.

-in the future , I expect to be consulted before these kinds of jumps are made, when decisions that impact all of us are made, so it is only natural that I ask you now, what do you think we should do?

Everyone was a bit surprised, they had expected their captain to be angry at Numiri, to point out the danger of their impulsiveness, but no, she was asking them for advice.  
While Akai and Rosetta , who knew her well, were expecting her to make the best of their situation like she had always done, they were still surprised to see how well she was taking this.

Akai tentatively took the stand, her voice started softly, she certainly wasn't a fan of public speaking.

-I know we were displaced against our will, but ultimately this could serve us in the long run, today was pretty depressing I admit but I refuse to believe all the colony ships have met the same fate! We will find them all, and we will rally them to our cause, and if we don’t space is vast, our experiences have shown us that it is far from empty too, this universe is full of life , and I’m sure we can find help among the stars. We always dreamed of exploring outside our garden, I know the four of you -she pointed to the synthetics- were created for that, it is your dream as much as it is mine. Rosetta , we often talked about exploring the far reaches of space together, Deidra I know you have humanity’s best interest at heart, and I’m in no way suggesting we abandon it, we get help, we explore, we make our stand among who we find, and then we come back with assistance! Fuck the vanguard and their narrow vision of what should and should not be ! We do this our way! 

Her little speech had exhorted the group, she could be very persuasive when she wanted too, and as some of the crewmembers were applauding her, she blushed like a purple tomato and scrounged back down in her chair, embarrassed to her maximum.

-thank you for this very nice intervention my dear Akai, I expected no less, you were always interested in the amrita project, and while it is true we now have the power to discover their fate, you should all consider that if we do this, we launch ourselves in the great unknown, these are uncharted territories , we can only count on each other . As your captain, it is my duty to protect everyone of you, but as my crew I expect from you to be your best selves, we are a family, no one will be left behind. We buried today enough people already, this will not happen to us. I have faith in each and everyone of you , we will need to trust each other like our lives depend on it because I’m sure at one point it will!

It was a clear reminder why they had chosen Deidra as their captain, she wasn’t just the more experienced of the group, she had this uncanny ability to bring the best out of people, to make them trust her and more importantly to make them trust themselves.   
Sobek was the only one who over the 60 years he had accompanied Deidra and Blacksmith , had seen the power , the charisma this woman held over others. He had seen her save so many lives , so many villages, nomad clans, fisherman tribes over the years that he had no doubt this adventure was in good hands.  
When he spoke, everyone was still taking in what the captain had said.

-personally I vote to keep going, this voyage could be the most important mission we could ever accomplish, and as the only one with this power I say we use it, we use this ship’s incredible engines to find what we seek.

-I vote we keep going too, akai is right, I was made for this , and I want to keep going, I want to see what lies beyond.

-same as Torres

-where Micah goes I go, there’s no debate here, count me in.

-Numiri we know where you stand, you’re the one who brought us here after all , however please try to ask before pulling this kind of moves , alright? Btw I’m in , I think I made it clear in my little outburst earlier.  
-Rosetta? I will take everyone’s voice into consideration,I may be captain but this is a democracy, there will be no room for regrets once we’re launched, well I guess we can still go back if there is but that’s not the question right now. 

Rosetta was clearly having a telepathic chat with her ghost, because the little disco ball spoke for her once more.

-Rosetta and I will follow our fireteam until the end of the world, you know that, we followed you into battle, we followed you into hell, into the red legion’s claws, don’t think for a second we won’t follow you on what will be the greatest adventure of our lifetime.

Deidra sighted in relief ,she was scared Rosetta would go back to the city, (afterall she was the one who had spent the most time socializing with its inhabitants in the past) then smiled and banged her hand on the table .

-into the stars we go then!

-to the stars! 

The crew had spoken these last words together , without rehearsing it, it had just come out spontaneously. They laughed about it while they kept on talking about what their next destination should be, shifting the central map of the CIC into a map of the local star clusters and the possible exoplanets orbiting them.

\---

Later , on the bridge , the purplish blue shift of standard warp was illuminating the consoles and the empty seats. Empty, except one, Deidra was sitting at the Helm, it was late, everyone was either sleeping or organising their quarters more comfortably for a long trip.  
Sobek was next to the windows , looking into the void speeding past the ship

Deidra, her face scarcely illuminated by the warped space lights , broke the low humming of the engines.

-it does feel like destiny doesn’t it? 

-what does ?

-You told me, all those years ago that you knew your guardian wouldn’t be of Earth, I guess you were right, the farther we go the more chances of it happening there will be.

-to be honest that wasn’t how I pictured it but yes, I feel like the path we now walk is the one we are meant to .

\----

\---Vocabulary---  
Destiny specific terms:

-THE TRAVELER: sort of planet shaped deity (smaller than Pluto), hovering silently over the last city on Earth. It uplifted Humanity with technologies in the early/mid 21st century. Supposedly it is ageless, traveling among the stars uplifting species.

-THE LAST CITY : technically “the last safe city on earth” a gigantic city built under the Traveller in the mountains of chile , located near the modern town of Uspallata. It is not however the only settlement. Only a third of humanity lives here

-THE COLLAPSE: "the end of the world" a general collapse of all infrastructure and countries in the 2320 due to an overwhelming alien invasion . Almost all intel on the actual events is lost.

-GUARDIAN : warriors resurrected from dead bodies by a ghost to wield the light (energy) as a weapon to defend Earth and humanity. They have no memories of their previous life, only their bodies.(the protagonists of the game)

-GHOST: little AI in the shape of a little star around a ball , no bigger than a grapefruit, they were created by the Traveller before it went into silence, they are tasked with finding "their" guardian and bringing them back to life.

-THE DARKNESS: main enemy of the Traveller, represented by the hive, taken and in a way by the eliksni. Otherwise they are mysterious giant black pyramidal spaceships.

-ULDREN AND THE BARONS: major antagonist of the “forsaken” expansion pack for the game destiny 2

-THE REEF: a conglomerate (literally) of old spaceships and debris at the edge of the inner solar system, touching the asteroid belt, it is the kingdom of the queen of the Awoken, Mara Sov. All kind of weird shit and people can be found there.

-THE RED WAR: main storyline of Destiny 2.

OWL SECTOR: civilian intelligence organisation from the city created to gather as much tactical and technological information to help further the safety of the people.

THE SPIDER: one of the rare Eliksni working with humanity, he has a sort of smuggling cartel in the reef. His actual motives are unclear.

TWILIGHT GAP : a legendary battle and the last real assault lead by three unified great Eliksni houses on the city. It took place between 120 and 170 years prior.

-TITAN : subclass of Guardian, they usually are big and smart, their main asset is raw power and resilience. They wield specific powers that no other classes can use 

-HUNTER :subclass of Guardian , they usually are small and agile, their main asset is speed and marksmanship. They wield specific powers that no other classes can use (like double jump, they can take a second jump mid air to reach higher)

-WARLOCK: subclass of guardians: they usually are mysterious and focused on research. Their main asset is versatility and understanding of the Light . They wield specific powers that no other classes can use

-ENGRAM: new state of matter, where mass disappears into information only. One of the major discoveries of the golden age.

-TRANSMAT: basically teleportation

-Arc/Solar/Void : the three types of energy the Light turns into , the first one manifests itself as electricity, the second fire and the third as dimensional flux

-WARMIND : a network of highly powerful AI (or a single AI controlling it all, it is unclear) controlling the defenses of the solar system.

-RASPUTIN : a warmind, a highly specialized and powerful artificial intelligence designed to protect Humanity from potential outside threats . it’s real motives are unknown.

-EXO: robotic body allegedly designed as a soldier , made to house a human mind.

-Braytech : Clovis Bray technologies and Clovis Bray exosciences, the leading edge of technological advancement during the golden age. They created the EXO’s and the Warminds

-The vanguard : Elite guardians (three of them, one of each class) who coordinate the last city’s defenses, organize assaults on enemy strongholds and assassinations of their leaders, and mentor newly-risen Guardians. Some Guardians work directly for the Vanguard as scouts, investigating potential threats to the City far afield. At the beginning of the game there were three: Cayde-6 (now passed) Ikora and Zavala

-Zavala : titan member of the vanguard, a good man, yet vehemently opposed to the idea of guardians digging into their own past.

-Kinderguardians: how freshly risen guardians are called by everyone else.

-Frame: a frame is a robotic body , not made to look like a human (although it is of humanoid structure -2 arms two legs, a head in the middle of shoulders) most frames do not have a personality programmed into them, some do.

-the Drifter: a rogue lightbearer , very ancient, who just came back to the city. He has power over the darkness. His motives are unknown.

-AMRITA project: a series of colony ships launched from earth during the golden over a period of 300 years they bear the name of colours preceded by the name EXODUS.(see episode 1)

\-----The five alien species of the collapse: -----

-Eliksni (fallen) :one of the five Alien species who came to the Sol system during/after the collapse. they are not a unified specie, their people are separated in great houses, often warring with each others  
they have four arms and two legs, as well as four eyes. Their story is very similar to humanity.

-The Hive: The Hive are a race of insectoïde aliens that worship and serve the Darkness.They also follow the teachings of the Deep, specifically a principle known as The Sword Logic.(the strong devours the weak…) they house a race of worms in their bodies , whom they revere as gods.

-the cabal: The Cabal are a warmongering race of giant bipedal humanoids with a heavy-set, rhinoceros-like appearance. Their ever expanding Empire spreads through organization, efficiency, and corruption.

-Vex: The Vex have been described as a "hyperintelligent time-spanning thought-mesh", a collective mind composed of countless component intelligences distributed across time and space. The mobile Vex machines encountered by Guardians are merely containers for these intelligences, which carry mind cores filled with milky radiolarian fluid - hypothesized to be the only remnant of their distant biological origin

-the Taken: not a species per se, they are a state of being, The Taken are Darkness-corrupted entities originating from multiple species warped into another dimension called and altered to serve their given purpose. Once used by Oryx, The taken king (now dead) as his personal army, they have more recently been utilized by other powerful Darkness-aligned entities. They have no will of their own. 

\----Acronyms and Initialisms:----

ETA: estimated time of arrival 

HUD: head’s up display, in this case mounted inside the helmet.

CIC: combat information center, on deck two of the ship, directly on top of the bridge, it has a conference room with a huge table , an observation window to the front of the ship and a physical display of the celestial position of the ship.

EVA: extravehicular activity, basically a space walk to repair something in space or to reach another location through space.

AU: astronomical unit, roughly 150 million kilometres (the average distance between the Earth and the Sun)

LY : light year, unit of distance corresponding to the distance reached at the constant speed of light in a vacuum in one year. ( close to 63 241 astronomical units)

PPT : pulsed plasma thruster, a (real) type of electric space propulsion used on several soviet spacecrafts in 1964

EMP: electromagnetic pulse, a burst of energy capable of frying any unprotected electronic systems in its path

Since every guardian/characters are of different origins, they all have a “mother tongue” they sometime revert to when speaking, together they all speak Quechua or English (and i write it in English because i do not speak Quechua) it’s specified in skills in the crew manifest but here it goes, in details:

Akai’s natural language is Russian, she uses it for endearing terms an general expressions. It is also Numiri’s and Torres’s natural languages

Russian :

чё за галима?: (tchyo za galima) what the fuck??

что ? : (chto) what?

Blin: the equivalent of “shit” as an interjection , a soft swear in a way

Bolje: “god/lord” while not religious, an expression used by Akai when in disbelief.

Dorogaya moya: my dear


End file.
